Blue Dahlias

A hoe, a spade, a rake – what more do I need? Gardening is an instrument of grace.

Ordinary delights grow here – barren wort, bugbane, fountain grass, meadow rue.

And maybe, one day, blue dahlias – something rare, unheard of.

Why build a fancy house when you desire a cottage? Travel doesn't satisfy craving. Craving for what?

Dervishes whirl around their hearts, burn like a torch. This too is prayer.

Gardener Teapots

Sept. 12, 2001

This morning the sun rises alizarin crimson juice pressed from the madder root. I take my favourite porcelain mug stencilled with an English country garden and while the water boils, add a pinch of Russian Caravan to the tiny pot with the cracked lid.

Gardener teapots red,yellow, blue bone china made in Russia under Peter the Great were lugged by camel caravans over the Silk Road to Pakistan.

Waiting for the tea to steep, I hear the Great Blue Heron's kraak as it lumbers into flight

birds in the air, fish in the sea, and the world did not end yesterday in New York.

When the pots broke, menders salvaged the jagged bits, bound them with the copper lugs and sealed the cracks with tar so they could again brew tea.

No Trade-Ins Allowed

I bought, you bought a:

Tsimshian mask of a human transforming into an eagle

The winter we accused our son of using drugs, he reproached us for having possessions

Thai Buddha with mother-of-pearl eyes

He shaved his head and in monk's dress meditated among the wild rhododendrons

Oxford red leather Bible that lacked ingredients tasty for worms

Euphoric, he communed with God, blamed us for not sending him to church as a child

Wool rug from Beijing ancient coins woven dead centre

He sold his gold chain and the ring engraved with his Chinese name but that didn't drive away his demons

Gilt carving of soldiers on horseback from a home ransacked by Red Guards

One night in a back alley, he wrestled his father to the ground, stole his wallet

Balinese kris, its bloody history embodied in the blade

He ripped off the hilt and pawned an ebony lion with ruby eyes

Floppy clown dressed in red hearts from close to home

After he was diagnosed we tried to make a deal with God

Sky-Calling

for Ron

The albatross has a wingspan twice as wide as you are tall and hollow bones so light

she barely moves her wings in flight, those long thin wings hinges to fold like an origami bird

though she stumbles on earth with big webbed feet – a gooney in floppy shoes.

Every winter she circumnavigates Antarctica, buffeted by icy currents and Katabatic winds,

lands on the ocean to feed and rest – though how she sleeps in avalanches of water

is a mystery to me. Once a year she returns to breed on the Tairoa cliffs,

flapping her wings in a hullabaloo, craning her neck to the sky and screeching for her mate

until he comes and sits by her side, as if to say, I need you. I'll always need you.